There is still uncertainty and controversy about the management of PDA in preterm infants, resulting in substantial heterogeneity in clinical practice. There has been a shift in recent years from an aggressive PDA closure approach to a more expectant attitude, allowing for spontaneous closure, thus avoiding the need for therapeutic interventions. However, the effect of active treatment compared with that of nonintervention remains unclear. This study evaluated recent PDA treatment trends and identified related outcomes using nationwide population data. Characterizing practice patterns and assessing the relationships between different PDA therapies and their health outcomes may provide useful guidance for identifying the best therapies for treating high-risk infants.
From National Health Insurance data in Korea, the incidence of PDA in VLBW infants was 45%, while the incidence of PDA ligation in VLBW infants was 22%, which was comparable to population studies from the US and Canada.4,21,22 From the healthcare insurance dataset of 429,900 VLBW infants in the US from 1998 to 2015, 35% of infants were diagnosed with PDA and 18% had undergone PDA ligation.22 From the Canadian Neonatal Network (CNN) database in infants under 32 weeks of gestation, 3,673 infants (25%) were diagnosed with PDA and 26.4% of those infants had undergone PDA ligation in 2012.4 In accordance with this study, the study from the Korean Neonatal Network, which covers 70% of VLBW infants in Korea,23 reported that 44% received a PDA diagnosis and 23% underwent ligation, with 27% of primary ligation between 2013 and 2014.
Several studies in recent decades showed that early PDA treatment had no greater benefit for premature infants than alternative supportive strategies.13,14,15,16,17,18 In US, PDA ligation peaked at 23.7% in 2004 and decreased to 12.7% in 2015.22 From the retrospective cohort study of VLBW infants in California, between 2008 and 2014, the annual rate of infants undergoing pharmacologic intervention (31% vs 16%) decreased, whereas the proportion of infants who were not treated (61% vs 78%) increased. This tendency was also found in the current study. The incidence of treatment in VLBW infants in Korea decreased from 70–62% in the VLBW subgroup and that of conservative management increased from 30–38% during the study period.
However, for moderate-to-large hsPDA, chances of spontaneous closure are rare, and a combination of severe symptoms can be found, resulting in more invasive treatments for PDA closure.24 A watchful waiting strategy could not be followed in these preterm infants with severe PDA symptoms and they often required immediate surgical ligation for rescue therapy. In preterm infants less than 28 weeks gestation, 60–70% of the population eventually received medical or surgical therapy for hsPDA.25 In US, PDA ligation still remained around 12.7% in 2015.22 From the CNN, 26.4% of the infants with a PDA diagnosis underwent PDA ligation in 2012.4 From the cohort in California, infants undergoing primary ligation slightly increased from 2008 to 2014. In Korea, around 22% of VLBW infants diagnosed with PDA underwent PDA ligation and a similar trend was observed between 2015 and 2018. Surgical ligation may remain beneficial in certain populations, such as VLBW neonates with unstable vital signs who cannot tolerate conservative managements.
Surgery-related factors may potentially harm infants who undergo ligation.8 Many studies on surgical ligation have reported adverse outcomes such as increased BPD.26 Lee et al. retrospectively reviewed data from three neonatal intensive care units and identified long-term complications in infants who underwent PDA ligation including chronic lung disease in 77%, IVH in 39%, NEC in 26%, and ROP in 28%.27 Our national data showed more complications in the surgical group than in the conservative strategy group, including increased morbidities such as BPD, NEC, and sepsis. In accordance with our study, the CNN has shown a trend of increased morbidities such as BPD, IVH, NEC, and severe ROP related to PDA ligation.4 However, we assumed that complications were not due to the surgery itself but rather because this population was already at a high risk of complications, as infants usually underwent ligation after a PDA diagnosis. Notably, there may have been survival bias and confounding effects of treatment indication by severity. Patients who underwent treatment for PDA may have been experiencing a more severe medical condition, even after correcting for statistical confounders.
The patients with ROP in our data included those with lower stages of the disease (stages 1 and 2), and no significant difference in ROP was observed between treatment groups. In contrast, another study observed a difference in ROP (> grade 3) in different treatment groups.4
Several reports about the safety and feasibility of PDA ligation without associated complications suggest that early surgical ligation minimizes the adverse effects of hsPDA in preterm neonates who are likely to require surgical treatment.28,29 Some studies have shown that ligation is associated with reduced mortality.4 However, long-term outcomes remain uncertain due to adverse effects from therapy, higher spontaneous closure rates, and smaller ductal shunts with milder symptoms.
We also observed that ORs for some morbidities such as BPD, NEC, sepsis, and ROP were lower in the “only surgery” group than in the “medication plus surgery” group in Table 2. Interestingly, the CNN study also found more complications with patients who received “both medical and surgical treatment” than “only surgery” group.4 This implies that for patients with the most threatening hsPDA, it may be more beneficial to initially treat with surgery rather than waiting for failure of the medical treatment. As this trend is only acquired from retrospective data, further randomized controlled investigations are needed.
Our study demonstrated a novel finding that early PDA ligation is superior to PDA ligation after the failure of medical treatment. The timing of PDA ligation can be also important for determining neonatal outcomes.30 Complications related to PDA ligation can be confounded by poor patient characteristics and thus conclusions should be interpreted with caution. Treatment should be targeted according to the severity of symptoms to reduce adverse effects and less conservative approaches can be justified for select patients.
There are several limitations to this study. There is still no consensus regarding the treatment of PDA and the timing of PDA ligation in Korea. Variations in treatment modalities for preterm PDA between clinical units also exist. Furthermore, as these data were collected retrospectively, causality between treatment and complications cannot be established. Moreover, as the national insurance data rely on only diagnostic codes, detailed medical information was limited.
In conclusion, recent years have shown a trend toward the increased use of conservative management of PDA that has contributed to improved neonatal outcomes in VLBW infants. Nonetheless, surgical ligation may still prove beneficial in select patients following careful consideration. Further study targeted at infants requiring surgical intervention will be needed.